US travellers want to talk the walk

NEW YORK – There is news out of the United States that travel to Asia by U.S. residents was up 8.6 percent in the first nine months of 2007.

China was the 10th most visited country in 2006 by Americans travelling abroad, according to the Commerce Department.

And CoSport, the authorised ticket broker for Beijing’s 2008 Olympics, reports “high demand and limited supply” on its website. As of mid-December, only tickets for handball were available to Americans.

ABC News reports that WT, the largest ad agency in the U.S. (formerly J. Walter Thompson), lists “climate sightseeing” as a top travel trend for 2008, meaning trips to see phenomena threatened by climate change, like glaciers in Alaska or polar bears in Manitoba, Canada.

“More and more people want to relish these wonders while they still exist in their current form,” said Ann Mack, director of trendspotting for JWT.

“And there’s a conversational currency that comes with that. You’re a more intriguing person the more obscure places you’ve been to.”

The number of visitors to Alaska has increased steadily in the past two decades, with two million visitors last summer, a three percent increase over the previous year.

And, “Kilimanjaro has been a recent hot destination because of its melting glacier,” said Lake Waslander of Yahoo.

While National Geographic Expeditions tours are up 35 percent in the last year, the number of travellers signing up for its Alaska trips increased by 63 percent, Antarctica, 68 percent, and Arctic Norway, a polar bear-watching trip, has doubled.